Business school offers remissions

Students admitted to the School of Business Administration pay a greater amount of tuition than non-admitted Portland State business students but, for the second time, this spring the SBA offered remissions to some students in light of the higher costs they pay.

Remissions were first distributed last year to undergraduate students whose financial aid did not meet the total cost of their tuition paid to the business school, according to the SBA’s Chief Accounting and Budgetary Officer Kathy Black. Remission amounts are determined by the number of credit hours a student is taking, with 12 or more credits qualifying that student for a $300 remission. A remission of $100 is available to those with less than 12 credits.

Black said the student must have been enrolled in the SBA since the fall term of the academic year for which the remission is offered. She said the Financial Aid Office provides the SBA with data regarding students’ tuition, and that students with unmet needs are considered for a remission.
 
  “The Financial Aid Office came to us and said, ‘Here’s the budget and here’s what you can give in remissions and we were happy to do it,” Black said. “When you charge a differential tuition, you hope to be able to give some of it back.”
 
  About 200 students qualified for remissions this year, according to Darrell Brown, associate dean for SBA undergraduates. Black said 10 percent of the funds collected with the differential tuition, or about $50,000, were distributed by remissions according to which students had the most unmet needs.
 
  “Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough to give to everyone this year…we gave it to students who needed it the most,” Black said. “It’s based on a descending order of amount due after aid.”
 
 Brown said the number of students selected for remission this year decreased from last year, when the SBA first offered remissions. He said remissions will likely continue in the coming years, though he did not know whether to expect an increase in students that receive remissions or not.
 
  “We hope to see the number of students to whom we can provide remissions to grow, but it depends how much money we have to offer,” Brown said. “There are more students now that are actually admitted to the SBA, more paying the differential, so we should see the funds increase.”
 
 Black said, “We’d love to continue the program, as long as the Financial Aid Office approves it.”

 “We know students appreciate it.”

   Brown said changes to the SBA’s admission policy and course scheduling will affect the amount of funds raised by the differential tuition. The minimum GPA for admission was raised to 2.85, up from 2.75 last year, and will be set at 2.9 for fall 2010 applicants.
 
  This year, it also became a requirement for students to be formally admitted to the SBA before they could register for upper-division classes. Brown said that previously, students could register for 300- and 400-level classes without being admitted to the SBA, but that priority registration had been offered to admitted students.
 
  Brown said the new policies will affect the amount of funds collected from the differential tuition, but that he does not think they will curb the number of SBA applicants.
 
 “I don’t think the new requirements for 300- and 400-level classes will change the number of students applying and being admitted to the SBA, but the new GPA requirement will likely make a difference,” Brown said.

Business students will have to pay a differential during the summer term, according to the summer session Web site. Registration for summer courses begins May 3 for all students, regardless of admission to the SBA or academic year.

Cost, per term, of 12 credits for resident undergrads

                                 PSU        SBA   
2009–10                $1,891        $2,020
Summer 2010        $1,771        $1,891